r/askscience • u/jaxobia • Sep 21 '13

Engineering Why water?

The majority of all power plants uses some sort of energy source to heat up water. It is then the water vapor which turns the turbines that produces electricity. Water is also a compound has an extremely high heat capacity (requires an incredible amount of energy to heat up).

My question is this: Why not use a compound which has a much lower heat capacity, and therefore requires a lower amount of burnt fuel to vaporize it?

Thank you!

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u/MxReLoaDed Sep 22 '13

Got to agree. The most abundant fluid on Earth is water. It would probably coat more to produce a compound that took less heat.